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GOODBYE
SUMMER
by
George Lester |  |
I envied those kids who liked school. If I could have been more like them, my
life would have been a lot happier. School wasn’t too bad, once it started and
I got into the habit of being confined again. The last few days of summer vacation
were really what dealt me the most misery. Little Eddie Lester was a complete
free spirit who hated the thought of losing those glorious, carefree days for
another nine months. The time between the last day of school in the spring and
the first day of school in the fall seemed to get shorter each year. Getting up
each summer morning and thinking about all the fun I was going to have that day
made life a dream come true.
We did have our chores to do around the farm,
but I preferred even those to going to school. I sometimes felt that I was born
a hundred years too late. It seemed to me that those pioneer kids who spent the
days hunting and fishing to put food on the table had the ideal life. So what
if they did grow up without being able to read and write. I figured there were
more important things in life than “book learning.”
One summer stands
out in my mind above all the rest. It was Sunday, and the next day began that
awful end of freedom and joy. I decided to make one last visit to all the magic
places I held so dear all that summer. Trotting along beside me, my dog, Smoky,
even seemed to know there was something different about that day. We first walked
through the cane field, a place I enjoyed because of the way it made me feel,
as if I were cut off from the world. There were bare spots in the middle where
the cane didn’t grow. In one of these islands, I could dream that I was in some
far off land, hiding from the advancing civilization.
Then there was
that treasured place down at the creek bed. Even in the worst drought, there was
one pool that never seemed to dry up. The cool, shady grass at the water’s edge
was a pleasant respite from the scorching summer heat. I would lie there and look
up at the white clouds drifting by like giant ships going out to sea.
Next, we moved on to our neighbor’s land where there was a thick grove of oaks
and mesquite. I had taken a shortcut through there many times when going to visit
my playmates on the next farm. The path was like a tunnel, covered by the thick
branches above. Now and then, I’d see a rabbit scurrying into the brush. That
day, everything looked different; a shadow had been cast upon those beautiful
sights.
I stopped for a while and rested on a log. Somewhere in the distance
I could hear the lonesome coo of a dove. Smoky nuzzled up close to me as if he
knew what I was thinking. It was getting late, and the sun was about to dip below
the horizon, but I stayed a little while longer to drink in the last breath of
this wonderful season, a season that was dying before my very eyes. |
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